(A) study on the pervaporation separation of water/ethanol mixture through anionic PAA/PBMA IPN membranes

Abstract

Pervaporation characteristics of anionic PAA/PBMA IPN and semi-IPN membrane were investigated. Anionic PAA/PBMA IPN membranes were prepared by sequential polymerization method and had thickness about 100 mm. This membranes had very high separation factor ranging from 10 to 511 with the ethanol concentration in feed, but had poor permeation rate ranging from 95 to 32 g/㎡hr. And Permeation rate of the IPN membrane increases and separation factor of the IPN membrane decreases with the increase of the $\bar{M}_c$ of the x-PAA part. Anionic PAA/PBMA semi-IPN membranes with non-woven polyester fabric supporter were prepared by photo-polymerization and had thickness about 50 ㎛ of skin layer. This membrane has larger permeation rate but lower separation factor than that of anionic PAA/PBMA IPN membranes. For the case of phase separated semi-IPN, permeation rate was very high ranging from 597 to 826 g/㎡hr whereas separation factor was very poor ranging from 1.23 to 44.55. However, non-phase separated semi-IPN membranes had a good permeation rate ranging from 366 to 473 g/㎡hr and separation factor ranging from 2.69 to 90.8.